Have A Heart: Donate Your Organs

EDITORIAL

Colby Salerno Young Cheshire man shows need for more organ donors

June 04, 2012

He is, in more ways than one, the blogger with the heart.

Colby Salerno, a young man of 24 from Cheshire, was diagnosed 12 years ago with a congenital heart defect, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the condition that took the life of Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis, among many others.

Two yeas ago, Mr. Salerno's heart had weakened to the point where doctors felt he needed a transplant. In December he entered Hartford Hospital to wait for a match. Almost immediately he began a blog titled "Tales from the 10th Floor."

The blog, humorous and reflective, was often about the day-to-day happenings in a hospital, the food, his great team of nurses, the hawk outside his window. He even dedicated a blog to his unknown future heart donor, "John Doe." The blog gained an avid following and was voted the area's best health blog and best overall blog in the 2012 courant.com Websters awards.

What added tension to the wait is that it is never certain there will be a John Doe. An average of 79 people receive organ transplants each day, but 18 people die waiting for transplants (one to two a week in Connecticut), according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' website organdonor.gov.

Thankfully for Mr. Salerno and his family, there was a John Doe. After 166 days, a match was found and Mr. Salerno got his new heart last week. The donor reportedly was an 18-year-old from Bristol, Jesus Vega, who died from injuries sustained in a basketball game.

After the operation Mr. Salerno said he hoped to live his life in a way that would make his donor proud.

Donate Your Organs!

Through his blog Mr. Salerno has made many people aware of the need for more organ donors. That need is all too real. At present there are 114, 575 people across the country waiting for transplants, 1,318 of whom are in Connecticut. The majority are waiting for kidneys.

But, said Kari Mull of the nonprofit advocacy group Donate Life Connecticut, only 40 percent of Connecticut adults are registered organ and tissue donors. That is below the national average of 43.3 percent. That is flat-out embarrassing; there is no reason not to be an organ donor.

Donation doesn't cost anything. It doesn't negate an open casket viewing. All mainline religions endorse the practice. It is highly unlikely that we are going to need our organs when we finally cross to what Shakespeare called "that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns," and we may even get credit for the gesture. There is a completely nutty urban myth that hospitals hasten the deaths of donors; there is not a scintilla of evidence that that is true (think of the lawsuits!).

Also, donation can be a comfort to the donor's surviving family and friends. That was the case with the family of Jesus Vega. Although he has not been confirmed as the donor because of privacy rules, his sister Brittany Vega said that the general information she was given by medical personnel leads her to believe her brother's heart went to Mr. Salerno.

"It's a wonderful story," she told The Courant. "My brother, he can't be here, but that boy will live through my brother."

She said her brother's organs went to five other people as well. A donor can save up to eight lives.

But without more donors, some fine people such as Mr. Salerno aren't going to make it.

Become a donor by signing up when you get or renew your driver's license. Or easier still, by going to http://www.donatelifenewengland.org/.